Zuckerberg Group Renews Pressure to Pass Immigration Reform

The immigration advocacy group backed by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is hoping that the shake-up of the House Republican leadership presents new hope for reviving immigration reform legislation.

FWD.us President Joe Green said he is encouraged by the rise of California Rep. Kevin McCarthy to House majority leader and Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise to majority whip, and is encouraging supporters to renew their push with lawmakers for reform, The Hill reported.

"Both of these representatives have indicated their support for fixing our fundamentally broken system multiple times," Green wrote Monday in a FWD.us blog.

As "members of House GOP leadership, the pressure is on for them — along with Speaker [John] Boehner — to take action and bring reform legislation to a vote as soon as possible, so that we can boost our economy and do right by the millions of American families living in fear of separation."

Green told supporters to contact their members of Congress to press them to get behind the effort.

Green's optimism about reform efforts contrasts with a more widely held view that the defeat of Majority Leader Eric Cantor spelled the end of achieving immigration reform in this Congress, given it was a defining issue in his race against tea party favorite Dave Brat.

Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, said at the time of Cantor's loss that immigration reform was all but dead.

"Everybody agrees that if immigration reform was on life support before, they're pulling out the plugs" because no other House Republican will want to end up like Cantor, he said.

Since its inception last spring, the group has raised tens of millions of dollars from Silicon Valley titans, and has been running an extensive pro-immigration television ad campaign in races across the country.